Photographer Asks Teens To Edit Their Pics Until They Look ‘Social Media Ready’, Posts The Alarming Results
Teenagers feel a lot of pressure to be and look a certain way. But to what extent? To find out, creative agency M&C Saatchi has partnered with the renowned British photographer Rankin and MTArt Agency. As part of VISUAL DIET, a campaign that explores the impact of beauty standards on mental health, they asked a group of teens to polish their selfies for social media.
“In the series ‘Selfie Harm‘ I was specifically looking and experimenting with the apps that are actually targeted at teenagers,” Rankin told Bored Panda. “They are like playing computer games and consequently are really good fun. I’ve personally enjoyed messing around with them but they are very addictive.”
Image credits: RankinPhotography
The project saw the renowned British photographer shoot a group of teens aged 13-19. They were then asked to spend a few minutes editing the photo until they thought it was good enough to match the Instagram trends. “Initially, we used models and then I wanted to expand it to other teenagers, so we did a call out looking for [more] subjects for the perfect selfie.”
“The program we used was one of many like Facetune <...> but there are hundreds of these apps,” the photographer added. “The main thing is that we weren’t casting people that used these apps, but found teenagers and asked them to try them out. They were shown how to use them, which literally takes seconds as they are very easy to work out, then they did the body image editing themselves.”
Rankin also believes that there is no sense checking around it. “What you can do on these apps is way beyond what photoshopped images. The technology is moving forward very quickly and the idea of being somebody in any way different from the person you are can be exciting, but what are the pitfalls around it. That’s what I’m asking. If you can be even just a ‘more polished’ version of yourself, how hard does it then become to accept who you actually are? This is a very bad influence for mental health and this project is only just scratching the surface of it.”
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Rankin: rankin.co.uk | Instagram | Facebook
M&C Saatchi: mcsaatchi.com | Facebook
MTArt Agency: mtart.agency | Facebook | Instagram
VISUAL DIET: visualdiet.co.uk | Instagram
All the edited pictures look creepy
agreed, like something out of a horror movie. No thanks, I like the originals.
All the usual - make eyes look bigger, mouths look bigger, slim down the nose, make skin perfectly smooth and characterless. They all end up looking freaky. So much worse than their original selves. Sad.
@Carrie de Luka You are absolutely correct. All these afters are horrible. When I’ve “touch up” any photo of mine, I NEVER go this far. It just makes me laugh at what some younger “kids” think about their self worth shown to the world.
Yep. That’s kinda like some of the stuff I had to do when I worked as a Graphic Designer for a famous candy company in Tacoma, Washington. For the Employee of the Month photos I was told to “pretty them up” by upper management since they were going to be displayed where everyone that came to the company could see them. They even had me remove neck tattoos from the guy that had gotten Employee of the Year. It cracked me up that they wanted me to do that. But the ones I did I never changed their skin tone or made them thinner in the face or moved their ears to make them not stick out.
I know! The originals looked edited anyway
So do lots of the befores. These do not look like normal kids.
I know, right? They already looked eerily perfect to begin with.
the original look better
Lemme let you in on a little secret. 95% of us don't do this.
None of the teenagers have acne? While I get what you are trying to say, why are all of these teenagers perfect?
Yeh, no acne scars or huge pores. I'm jealous of their skin. The before pictures look great
Yeah, I have atopic eczema so I can relate.
I suspect the before pictures are the photographer's 'before' - ie post-processed incl light correction and spot removals
All the edited pictures look creepy
agreed, like something out of a horror movie. No thanks, I like the originals.
All the usual - make eyes look bigger, mouths look bigger, slim down the nose, make skin perfectly smooth and characterless. They all end up looking freaky. So much worse than their original selves. Sad.
@Carrie de Luka You are absolutely correct. All these afters are horrible. When I’ve “touch up” any photo of mine, I NEVER go this far. It just makes me laugh at what some younger “kids” think about their self worth shown to the world.
Yep. That’s kinda like some of the stuff I had to do when I worked as a Graphic Designer for a famous candy company in Tacoma, Washington. For the Employee of the Month photos I was told to “pretty them up” by upper management since they were going to be displayed where everyone that came to the company could see them. They even had me remove neck tattoos from the guy that had gotten Employee of the Year. It cracked me up that they wanted me to do that. But the ones I did I never changed their skin tone or made them thinner in the face or moved their ears to make them not stick out.
I know! The originals looked edited anyway
So do lots of the befores. These do not look like normal kids.
I know, right? They already looked eerily perfect to begin with.
the original look better
Lemme let you in on a little secret. 95% of us don't do this.
None of the teenagers have acne? While I get what you are trying to say, why are all of these teenagers perfect?
Yeh, no acne scars or huge pores. I'm jealous of their skin. The before pictures look great
Yeah, I have atopic eczema so I can relate.
I suspect the before pictures are the photographer's 'before' - ie post-processed incl light correction and spot removals